Do your employees trust you?

If the answer is no, and it probably is whether you want to hear it or not, than I guarantee the performance of your organization is suffering.

Why is trust so pivotal? It’s a matter of human nature: When employees don’t trust their leaders, they don’t feel safe. And when they don’t feel safe, they don’t take risks—and where there is no risk taken, there is less innovation, less “going the extra mile,” and therefore, very little unexpected upside.

Feeling safe is a primal human need. Without trust, people respond with distraction, fear, and, at the extreme, paralysis. And that response is hidden inside “business” behaviors—sandbagging quotas, hedging on stretch goals, and avoiding accountability or commitment.

Your challenge for the week is to determine if you have created a CULTURE OF TRUST within your organization.

Here are the three questions you need to ask to find out:

1. Does it matter to you whether your employees trust you? This should be an easy one to answer. YES, it matters very much. The two biggest reasons why it matters are related – PERFORMANCE and PROFITS.
2. Do they trust you? I’m going to answer that one for you. Probably not. But here are some ways to find out for sure. Ask them. The problem with this approach is that if they don’t trust you, they won’t tell you the truth. So you have to ask someone who you have a good relationship with what they think the group thinks. But don’t just stop there, be less informal with your team. Walk around, ask them questions. And then really listen. See how open they are with you about answering. If they feel nervous or try to give you canned answers, you know you don’t have a culture of trust. Keep doing this and your employees will begin to see you as a person, and not just the boss, and you will begin to gain their trust.
3. Do you trust them? Ernest Hemingway famously said, “the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”. Micromanaging, whether it’s by you or your direct reports, is a clear message to your team that you don’t trust them. And that is costing your organization precious dollars. Start to loosen the reigns and believe that your employees are going to do what’s right for the company. Help them understand what that means and then let them go to work. Don’t punish “good failures” and don’t squelch the flow of “bad” news.

Trustworthiness is the most noble and powerful of all the attributes of leadership. Leaders become trustworthy by building a track record of honesty, fairness, and integrity. Cultivating this trust isn’t just a moral issue; it’s a practical one.

Here are some action steps you can take today to begin creating a culture of trust within your organization:

1. Choose – Understand that corporate culture is a deliberate choice; it flows from the CEO to senior management, and on down through the company. It’s up to you set the standard.
2. Focus - When problems arise, focus on the problem, not the person. This is a learned behaviour, but if you can shift the focus from the person to the problem you will find problems get solved faster, with less drama. You will also find that problems are brought forward more quickly. The results? More productive workers, and a happier workplace.
3. Open Up – Create an atmosphere of openness by being open yourself. As a leader you can start to move towards transparency by supporting openness, enabling free flow of information and rewarding actions that build and sustain trust. And this doesn’t just apply internally with employees, the concept is also critical with any relationships from partners to customers.

A culture of trust creates a working environment where teams stay focused, give their utmost effort, and in the end do their best work. It’s a place where we can trust ourselves, trust others, trust our surroundings, or—best of all—trust all three.
Trust me. I’ve seen the difference.

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Here is a Preview of Upcoming Business Challenge of the Week Topics:
Week of 10/17 -Team Building Challenge – Hiring “A” Players
Week of 10/24 – Leadership Challenge – Seeing Yourself as Others See You
Week of 10/31 – Growth Challenge – Organic growth may be your biggest opportunity
Week of 11/7 – Sales Challenge – How to get more out of your sales team

Tags: Advisory Board Expert, Bruce Rector, Business Challenge Of The Week, CEO Empower, Culture Of Trust, Entrepreneur Empower, Small Business Growth Expert, South Florida Business Advisory, The Rector Group